Hi Gary,Glad you finally got the 9300. It sounds like a really nice unit. I'm glad its living up to your expectation.I've all but given up hope on my ageing desktop. Too much tweaking for little or no return. I think its time to ditch it and get me a laptop.Regards,

This is helpful info. I've been running my Toshiba 5100 (P4-1.7, 512 ddr, 64 meg geforce4) for 3 years now and it's time for an upgrade and so far the XPS looks to be the best machine for the dollar. Compared it to Voodoo in Calgary, Alienware in the USA and others. Wish we had access to the coupons here in Canada. I'm on the road for work for up to half the year and for a fltstick I've been using a logitech extreme 3d pro. Okay but a little big. Interesting comments about the new screen size (16X9)but I wouldn't be surprised to find the next FS10 supports it. When at home I plug into a 17"lcd monitor and it works pretty good. The next monitor may be the Dell lcd 20.1" that can be run @ 1200x1600.Dave

Just a comment on 9300 vs XPS2 for FS. My desktop experience shows that FS performance is similar, whether I underclock my 6800GT, run it at stock, or run it at ultra speeds. Once you are operating within the powerband of a particular GPU family, CPU speed seems to have the greatest impact.Other than a prettier shell and LEDs, the ultra GPU on the XPS vs stock on the 9300 are the main difference between the two. As such, FS performance-wise I would postulate that there is little difference between the two in FS, and the 9300 is quite a bit cheaper. Just go for the fastest CPU option available.FS10 could change all that and utilise the extra horsepower offered by the ultra GPU, so it's probably an each way bet!Gary

I agree with you Gary, the XPS2 is a little overpriced right now as well. Unless you can get one of those 35% OFF coupons.This is a little off topic, but I've been following the developments of the next XBOX (Xbox 360) closely.All the details will be revealed next week (May 12th) but numerous sources say that it will have dual 64bit G5 processors and ATI's next generation GPU, able to play all the games at native HDTV (1280 by 720) progressive and maintain a silky smooth FPS, all while running an aggressive FSAA. Couple that with a user interface not too different from XP MCE and this begs the question;Are we entering a period where consoles will take over PC gaming? I mean, can you see a game like FS9 being ported to Xbox?I for one can see that happening and it may work itself into the next version of FS. Maybe this is another reason why we haven't yet heard anything from MS.

Anyone have any new infor for this thread?

I ran side-by-side comparisons of the 6800GT and 6800Ultra on my desktop before settling on the Ultra...it made a significant difference in FS9, especially with clouds and complex airports. The Ultra has twice as many internal data pipelines as the non-Ultra versions...it's more than just the ability to overclock the GPU. That, plus an option for a faster 2.17 GHz CPU in the XPS Gen 2 (9300 is available with CPUs to 2 GHz) is what steered me that way.That said, the 9300 still looks like a capable machine for portable FS with a few compromises. So far the only compromises I'm having to make with the XPS are related to controllers (I'm spoiled with a PFC floor-mounted yoke at home) and not having dual-monitors on the road. The XPS2 does support dual video if you have a pack mule to bring it all with you. :-)A couple of other add-ons might be worth mention. I added a Soundblaster Audigy2 ZS PCMCIA sound interface and a JBL OnTour portable microspeaker system. They work perfectly to provide a good quality audio option without needing headphones. The speakers in the XPS2 (and all other laptops I've looked at) have the usual kind of tinny sound.CheersBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-V L-300

Bob,>I ran side-by-side comparisons of the 6800GT and 6800Ultra on>my desktop before settling on the Ultra...it made a>significant difference in FS9, especially with clouds and>complex airports. The Ultra has twice as many internal data>pipelines as the non-Ultra versions...it's more than just the>ability to overclock the GPU. I respectfully beg to differ. The Ultra and GT desktop GPUs have the SAME number of pipelines and pixel shaders (16 and 6 respectively), and only differ by memory/core clock speed and power requirement. Given that the GT is clocked at 350/1000 and the Ultra is clocked at 400/1100, it is impossible to obtain any more than the theoretical 15% performance boost that the core clock speed increase could possibly give you. Whilst this up to 15% performance boost may be of benefit in GPU bound games (like FPS games), I have found that it bears little to no influence on performance in FS2004 in complex scenarios (eg. mucho clouds, traffic and scenery) that appear to be otherwise CPU bound.Gary

Gary; You are correct about the GT versus Ultra, but I mis-spoke, it was the 6800 not the 6800GT that I compared against the 6800 Ultra. I think I had 6800 "Go" (rather than "GT") on the brain. At any rate, the Inspiron 9300 does not have an option for the GT or Ultra version, it can be configured with the base 6800 Go, versus the 6800 Go Ultra in the XPS2. Half the pipelines. The tests with the AGP non-"go" versions showed a noticeable improvement in FS9 with the Ultra in a real head-to-head test in the same system, all theorizing aside. Also, not sure I agree that all the texture swapping that occurs in FS9 is a CPU bottleneck as much as a GPU one. The move to the 6800 Ultra made a huge difference around clouds, even Chris Willis' low-bandwidth versions. Before the 6800 Ultra, I saw stutters and massive frame rate drops and fluctuations near clouds. With the ultra, the machine keeps a solid frame rate in the vicinity of clouds.CheersBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-V L-300

Bob,> At any rate, the Inspiron 9300 does not have an option for>the GT or Ultra version, it can be configured with the base>6800 Go, versus the 6800 Go Ultra in the XPS2. Half the>pipelines. Again I beg to differ. Both the 6800 Go and 6800 Go Ultra have 12 pixel pipelines, just like the desktop vanilla 6800. It is only core and memory clock speed where they differ, although it is quite a considerable difference (The 6800 Go on the 9300 is clocked at 290/590 whereas the 6800 Go on the XPS2 is clocked at 450/1100).>The tests with the AGP non-"go" versions showed a>noticeable improvement in FS9 with the Ultra in a real>head-to-head test in the same system, all theorizing aside. Do you have a link to these tests? I'd like to see them.>Also, not sure I agree that all the texture swapping that>occurs in FS9 is a CPU bottleneck as much as a GPU one. The>move to the 6800 Ultra made a huge difference around clouds,>even Chris Willis' low-bandwidth versions. Before the 6800>Ultra, I saw stutters and massive frame rate drops and>fluctuations near clouds. With the ultra, the machine keeps a>solid frame rate in the vicinity of clouds.I am off work today, so I whipped up a couple of test cases for my 9300 to show just how CPU bound FS in is complex scenarios. Firstly I ran some tests on my base FS2004 installation (ie. with the 9.1 patch installed and NO addons ) with the default flight (cessna on rwy at KSEA). All display sliders are to the right and all graphical options checked, except water effects are on low (otherwise you can't have max terrain detail land and water), in-game AA off (externally controlled) and mip map lighting to 4. Realism is set to hard and traffic is set to 100%. FRAPS was used to get an average frame rate over 30 seconds and FS was reloaded for each test case.The following results were obtained for three core/memory frequencies of the 6800 Go:1. 145/333 (underclocked to nearly half) - no AA/AF: 24 FPS, 4xAA/8xAF: 22 FPS, 8xAA/16xAF: 16 FPS2. 290/590 (stock frequencies) - no AA/AF: 24 FPS, 4xAA/8xAF: 24 FPS, 8xAA/16xAF: 23 FPS3. 373/756 (auto overclock - not bad hey!) - no AA/AF: 24 FPS, 4xAA/8xAF: 24 FPS, 8xAA/16xAF: 23 FPSWhilst performance waned a little with the underclock, there was no difference between the GPU stock frequency and the overclock, strongly suggesting that the bump up to ultra speed would yield a similar no performance difference result.Then I loaded up my fully optioned FS test case, running a AS2004.5 generated massive storm at EGLL on the ground, 100% UT traffic, aircraft facing as many terminals and other aircraft as possible, PMDG 737NG virtual cockpit and FS Global 2005 mesh. Visual settings were the same as for my default FS setup.In this test scenario, I obtained the following results:1. 145/333 - no AA/AF: 10 FPS, 8xAA/16xAF: 8 FPS2. 290/590 - no AA/AF: 10 FPS, 8xAA/16xAF: 10 FPS3. 373/756 - no AA/AF: 10 FPS, 8xAA/16xAF: 10 FPSAs you can see, except for the lowest GPU clock and highest AA/AF setting, performance in this test scenario is exactly the same for any GPU setting. ie. the scenario is nearly totally CPU-bound.In summary, I think you would be hard pressed to find any noticable performance difference between the 6800 Go and 6800 Go Ultra in FS2004 in complex display scenarios. Gary

Gary & Bob,Pretty interesting stuff. I'm still watching dell prices for both the 9300 & XPS. Does anyone have any info has to battery endurance between the two? Wish we got the coupons here. Also still hoping in the not too distant future Toshiba comes out with some performance comparable as this is my 2nd Toshiba laptop and they've both been excellent machines. If you've noticed the Dell site in the last week there is now a 100 gig 7200 rpm HD available as an option. It was mentioned on Tom's Hardware site a month or two ago. Anyway I've got the urge to get a new system but the question is which one. Dave

dbw,The 9300 gets about 3hrs non-gaming and 1.5hrs gaming on battery. From what I have read on notebookforums.com, the XPS2 gets about 2hrs non-gaming and 1hr gaming on battery - less obviously because of the greater power draw of the 6800 Go Ultra. Either laptop is a great choice for mobile flight simming.I have a 4200RPM 100G HDD in my machine. Although slow by today's HDD standards, it is very quiet and only gets mildly warm. Once FS is started up, the HDD is rarely access, so lower HDD performance isn't really an issue for me.Gary

This is what I've been running FS on for the last 3 weeks. I went for the 3.6 with 2 x 7200rpm 60GB drives in Raid 0. FS9 performance is incredible.http://www.rockdirect.com/notebooks/xtremeti_cons.htm

I finally bought a new laptop - A HP ZD8000 - p4-3.2, 1 gig ddr2, video 256 meg X600,80 gig 5400 rpm hd........... It works very, very well. FS2004 with aircraft like the PMDG 737, 38 mtr terrain, interesting weather and scenery addons that would drag my last system down - this system handles good. Fps set at max 30 and sometimes gets draged down to 20 or so. Also have the hi-res display that is excellent. So far, based on a few days it wold seem that this is going to be a good machine. LOMAC runs very good. I would reccommend this machine.Dave